Have you ever noticed after going to certain websites or looking up certain items on a search engine that soon advertisements related to those searches now appear when you go to other websites? Maybe you thought it was a strange coincidence or maybe you did not even notice at all. But I can tell you that if you use the internet, this has happened to you and it was not an accident. Nearly all websites track cookies. "Cookies are messages that web servers pass to your web browser when you visit Internet sites." These messages are stored by your web browser as a file and contain information about what you did while on the site, as well as information you voluntarily give to the site. In most cases the only people who can see these cookies are the websites that create it; however, there are some advertising companies who control the ad banner on these websites and therefore can also view these cookies and use them for their own advantage (The Knowledge Management Team). Cookies themselves are not the problem. The problem which those who are most targeted by cookies, teens and young adults, are faced with is the fact the websites which track cookies are targeting them and collecting information about them without their expressed consent. Unfortunately, these actions are not illegal. The United States government has done little to nothing to protect its youth from companies with which they interact on a daily basis from exploiting them. It is time for the government to follow the example set by other nations and create laws that require complete transparency.

In today's society, when technology is a part of almost every aspect of a young adult's life, the United States government should be doing more to protect them from greedy corporations. There has been very little legislation passed concerning the issue and what has been passed just is not enough. The Patriot Act was passed on October 26, 2001 when it was signed by George W. Bush and was then extended by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2011. This act was originally written as a response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 as a way for the government to track online terrorist activity. However, various loop holes and amendments enabled the government and other powerful companies to use this act to legally keep track of what people were doing online. Under this act, the companies of Silicon Valley and social networking sites were allowed to track information about their consumers because the government was in turn using this information to try to track terrorist activity online (Uniting and Strengthening America ... Act of 2001).  

The first time I really thought about this issue was after watching season 7 of Parks and Recreation on Netflix. In this season, an internet company names Gryzzl builds its headquarters in Pawnee. The citizens of the town use products like phones and computers and wifi, all of which Gryzzl provides to them for free. Suddenly, the citizens begin to receive these "GryzzlBoxes." These boxes are customized for each individual based on their personal website accounts, emails, and search history. This was an extreme invasion of their privacy and the citizens of Pawnee were rightfully outraged once they realized what was happening.

Gryzzl was in fact supposed to be a satire of the companies of Silicon Valley who have recently begun tracking cookies and mining data from their users. Data mining is "the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information - information that can be used to increase revenue, cuts costs, or both." Basically, data mining allows companies to collect mass amounts of information that is used ultimately only benefits their wallets. "Data mining software is one of a number of analytical tools for analyzing data. It allows users to analyze data from many different dimensions or angles, categorize it, and summarize the relationships identified. Technically, data mining is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases" (Palace). Because there are so many ways for companies to mine data, the average person often is not aware that this information can be tracked let alone what it is being used for. 

Google is one of the biggest culprits of tracking cookies and mining data without the full knowledge or permission from its users.  In 2007, Google purchased an advertising company called DoubleClick (Moran). DoubleClick advertisements can be found on the websites of companies like Microsoft, Apple Inc., Visa USA, and Nike. Because of these advertisements, when customers search these websites for specific products, a third-party cookie is sent to DoubleClick. Google defines third-party cookies on their website saying that they "are associated with a domain that is separate from the site a user visits." This information can in turn be used by Google to target you for specific advertisements in the future. Though on the surface this may just seem like a very strategic marketing plan that aims to present the consumer with products of their interest, a deeper evaluation leads us to see the privacy concerns with third-party cookies. The majority of customers are unaware that this information is being tracked at all let alone being sent to other companies. Although Google does outline its use of cookies in its Privacy Policy, finding the webpage is a struggle and on top of that, the information which is most pertinent is buried within paragraphs of meaningless hypotheticals. 

In fact upon reading Google's Privacy Policy, one might be surprised to learn that Google has the ability to track information you have provided other websites if you have used a Gmail account to set up a profile ("Advertising"). For example, if you create a Facebook profile using an email with the extension "@gmail.com," and you list your birthday and relationship status, you may notice that if you sign up for a Google+ account, it already has this information without you providing it. In addition, if you Like a page on Facebook for a product, you may notice that the next time you are on a site with advertisements providing by DoubleClick, the ads which appear throughout the website will likely pertain to this product (Emberton). This is crossing a line. Providing information for one website does not mean that another website should be able to have access to this information without expressed consent. 

Although some may argue that it is not a big deal for information like your relationship status or your birthday to be shared amongst these companies, there are ultimately two issues that can be raised from this. For one, if they have the ability to track and share these details who is to say they cannot or are not already tracking more important information like social security numbers, addresses, and credit  card numbers. In addition, if Google does not think that it is an invasion of privacy to track these things, why are they not more upfront with users about what information they are tracking and what they are using this information for? 

In a survey I conducted of 30 college and high school-aged students, participants were asked to complete a series of nine, yes or no and rate-style questions. When asked, "Prior to this survey, did you know what cookies (as a computer term) were?" 60 percent of participants replied that they had no previous knowledge of cookies. In another question, I asked if students were aware that Google could track what students were doing through its apps. About 67 percent of those surveyed replied that they did not know that Google can track what students do (O'Neil). 

Google, however, does not seem to be the only company that is invading the privacy of its users. Twitter, a social media network that is very popular among young adults, has recently been reported as doing something very similar. Twitter offers a feature called direct message which is a supposedly private way to contact another Twitter user. A recent lawsuit revealed that Twitter in fact has been reading and altering its users' direct messages in order to promote its advertisers (Quirk). In my survey, when I asked participants, "Did you know that Twitter can read and alter your direct messages?" 87 percent of participants responded that they had no previous knowledge that Twitter had the ability to do this. It is clear that most high school and college-aged students are unaware of the capabilities of the technologies they interact with on a daily basis, and if they did they would likely react the same as a few of the participants whom after the survey added that they would be changing their social media habits because of their newfound knowledge about the issue.   

As a follow up to these questions, I first asked participants to "rank [their] knowledge of laws that the government has already passed to protect its citizens. (1 being no knowledge and 5 being very knowledgeable)." 83 percent of participants rated their knowledge of these laws as a 3 or lower. I then asked them to "rate [their] agreement with the following statement: the government should pass legislation that prevents companies from mining data and tracking cookies." Only 6 percent of those surveyed disagreed with the statement. Although students admitted that prior to this survey they had little to no knowledge of the previous laws passed by the government, these results show that they do feel that the government should continue to do more to ensure safety for United States citizens online. Although the youth of America is quite ignorant to the vast amount of information that is being collected about themselves, once made aware they clearly feel quite strongly that enough is not being done by the government. And in fact these feelings are quite valid. 

On June 1, 2015 parts of the Patriot Act expired and were not renewed by Congress. The following day they published the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline over Monitoring Act of 2015, otherwise known as the USA FREEDOM Act (Text of the ... Act of 2015). This act was an attempt by Congress to silence privacy advocates and in fact was supported by a variety of companies, including Google and Facebook, who were looking to get back into the good graces of the public. These companies realized the reforms of this law were very minimal and quickly released statements strongly backing this law. The USA Freedom Act mostly affects the government's ability to collect large amounts of data for terrorist surveillance while just calling for these technology companies to try to be more transparent, something which since the passing of this law very few have yet to implement (Roberts). This law is not doing enough to ensure online privacy of the United States youth.

Although the USA Freedom Act is a step in the right direction, the government is still not doing enough to protect its citizens. In fact it should follow the precedent set by the European Union. In May 2011, the European Union made a law calling for websites to have complete transparency about what they are tracking. Websites must now directly ask visitors if they wanted to allow their cookies to be tracked. Now on all websites that wish to track cookies, a pop-up appears when someone visits their website. The pop-up reads something to the effect of, "This website wishes to use cookies." The customer would then have the option to check "Yes" or "No" (Emberton). The only other alternative for websites is to stop tracking cookies first and third-party cookies, except for very basic ones like items you added to your cart on a clothing website.  

Transparency is key. Tracking this information is not the problem. The issue is that users of a site need to be fully informed about the information being tracked, who has the ability to view and use this information, and what this information is being used for, and they should also be given the ability to allow or block the tracking of this information. 

The United States government is failing to create laws to stop big companies from invading citizen's privacy because in the process it would prevent them from being able to collect massive amounts of data. This allowing these companies to prey on their consumers who are completely unaware of the personal information that is being collected about them. When we inform youth about these concerns it is clear that they are not indifferent to these invasions of their privacy. Students want their government to take action to protect them and it is time that their voices are heard.


